Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll assembled their staff for a Champagne toast to mass death on the commencement of hostilities against Iraq. Stoll called it "my war." CNN maintains a running update here of Americans killed in Ira's war.

On February 6, 2003, Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll wrote, in all seriousness, of a pending anti-war demonstration that the "the New York City police could do worse, in the end, than to allow the protest and send two witnesses along for each participant, with an eye toward preserving at least the possibility of an eventual treason prosecution."

The June 9, 1995 Wall Street Journal quoted an SEC complaint against New York Sun backer Bruce Kovner as saying Kovner had "altered and destroyed" subpoenaed evidence. We wish you'd do the same to the daily print run of your God-awful newspaper, Bruce.

Also, Professor G. Harlan Reynolds alleged on August 27, 2002 - when the Sun was several months in publication - that Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll had not yet paid him for a piece authored for their inaugural issue.

Hendrik Hertzberg, prophet, commenting in early December 2001 on Seth Lipsky and the Sun: "He can make it lively, he can make it intelligent, and he can go way, way up-market with it, with a raffish edge." He also believed it would be "quite good journalistically."

Seth and Ira note: "Mostly, Mr. Pataki earned his union endorsements the old fashioned way - by buying them. In January, he signed over $1.8 billion to finance raises and pay for recruitment of unionized health workers, and he has also signed onto a number of expensive benefits for state workers." The implication, of course, is that there's a quid pro quo, which there certainly is.

Mr. Cullen, we do not hate Professor Reynolds, we only find his ideas abhorrent and their presentation obnoxious. He may well be a nice enough fellow. We mentioned his alleged shafting by the Sun because it delighted us: Seth and Ira's M.O. from day one has incorporated breach of contract and nonpayment; simultaneously, they drone endlessly about tort reform.

The Sun has done more for media transparency in its brief career than FAIR, Noam Chomsky, and each and every ombudsman ever combined. They have accomplished this through their own incompetence in covering their tracks, believing that one can pose as a grizzled New York editor of yore while gluttinously bingeing at the Manhattan Institute trough - so long as one does so while wearing a fedora. Seldom has so ridiculous an ass been taken so seriously.

We here at Like Father Like Sun just love talking about the New York Sun. But it turns out we’re not the only ones. Here are what some other publications have said recently:

The New York Post, August 15, 2002: THE rookie editorial staff at the New York Sun seems to have fallen for one of the oldest pranks in the business. On Tuesday, a story about Internet cafes
quoted a 15-year-old identified as "Mike Hunt." Our sophisticated tipster broke out laughing because it seemed as fake as those other childish double-entendres, Ben Dover and I.P. Daily. "It's like the annual pelican roundup at the Bronx Zoo, or the turkey presentation at the White House each Thanksgiving," laughed our source. "It's a tradition that never loses its pleasure."

The New York Post, August 8, 2002: * "Matt & Ben" - a fanciful two-woman show about how fame descended on Matt Damon and Ben Affleck - has already generated controversy.

A report in the New York Sun said the stars' lawyers were trying to quash the play - but the rumor turned out to be a joke started on the show's Web site.

The Montreal Gazette, July 21, 2002: Conrad's sun is failing to shine: Five-dollar bets were being collected at a recent New York City media party for a lottery involving ex-Canadian Conrad Black.
It looks like The New York Sun, Conrad Black and other investors' recent foray into the New York newspaper market, isn't selling a lot of ads and many in the industry think it's a matter of time before it folds.
"Give me Sept. 1," said one woman who paid the $5 to place a wager.
"I'll take Dec. 24th," said another, throwing down his bet. "He'll probably close and throw everyone on the unemployment line just in time for Christmas."

Professor G. Harlan Reynolds writes on his web log that "the New York Sun has yet to pay me for the piece I wrote for their first issue," leading us to wonder what exactly Seth and Ira did with those $20 million their backing plutocrats gave them. Reynolds notes the above in passing, linking to a piece refused by the Sun for being "too rhetorical," which is apparently a euphemistic way of saying "lay the damn thesaurus down, love."

The New York Sun does its readers, New York, and America yet another disservice today, as it continues put the portrait of Wallace Matthews on the front page. Children run screaming from the site of his mug, while adults run screaming from his column. Today: “People Who Play and Watch Tennis Are Pussies, While I’m A Manly Handball Playing Manly Man.”

By the way, Barbara Amiel (aka Mrs. Conrad Black, aka Lady Black of Ballybunion or something) had a nice column in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. She wrote, “The New York Sun (in which my husband is a passive investor) has a website at www.smartertimes.com which notes daily the double standards of the New York Times. I highly recommend the site, though I sometimes disagree with its reasoning. (For example: I found it unappetising to make innuendoes about pecuniary motives for Brent Scowcroft's stand against military action in the Middle East. His arguments do not convince me, but they are respectable arguments from an accomplished former general and public official.)” It is hard to understand what, exactly, her Mrs. Ladyship is trying to say here. Smartertimes does not appear to have been updated since April 14. Meanwhile, the ‘unappetising’ piece about Scowcroft appears to be a reference to the Sun’s August 19 editorial. (By the way, that editorial is genius, suggesting Scowcroft stands to make money off avoiding conflict. Of course Bush’s buddies won’t make any cash off a war. . .) So Lady Conrad of Saskatoon gets a couple of the facts mixed up; at least she provides disclosure regarding Lord Connie and the Sun, something that Seth and Ira have, near as we can tell, neverdone.

Seth and Ira weigh in today calling "war deficits a measure of national commitment." We would of course call them something else, though the interesting question for Like Father Like Sun here is not how much a war in the Muslim world (and Seth and Ira are spoiling for many of them) would cost us - both in dollars and human terms - but how much it would benefit war profiteers and commodity speculators.

I’ve been with this site almost since it was glimmer in Grady Olivier’s eye (the good one), and while we’ve had some correspondence with Sun writers (including the esteemed James Bowman and the, um, the. . .uh, well, Alicia Colon), we really haven’t had much luck discerning whether the paper’s head honchos Seth Lipsky and Ira Stoll were paying attention.

But it appears to be so, for today’s New York Sun contains what I can only take as a personal attack on yours truly, Brad Olson. It is a subtle assault, to be sure, but it is hard for me to take it any other way. The Sun has precisely four paid advertisements today. No, the one for the Yale Daily News’ ‘Insider’s Guide to the Colleges’ isn’t the offending party; nor is the one for Julliard at Night (way to go ad department, how’d you score that big account?). It’s the other two paid ads that feel like assaults on good old Brad-O.

There on page five is a damn-near quarter-page advertisement for “Folliguard, the revolutionary new supplement scientifically formulated to stop hair loss and regrow new hair!” (How one can “regrow” something that is “new” is beside the point.) Then, at the bottom of page eleven, is an ad for the “House of Tan” on Authur Ave. in the Bronx (I think they meant ‘Arthur Ave.,” but that’s beside the point.) What does this have to do with me? Well, as regular readers of this site know, I make my living in BOTH OF THOSE FIELDS!!! Could this possibly be a coincidence? Or are Seth and Ira actually TRYING TO DEPRIVE ME OF MY LIVELIHOOD?? Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is obviously the latter. The Sun is trying to woo my regular customers away from me in an attempt to destroy Like Father, Like Sun! It isn’t going to work, boys! My tanning regulars, from Brandi to Misssi, and my hair replacement regulars, from Mr. Newman to Mr. Yousefzadeh will never throw me over because of some fancy New York ad blitz! In fact, I predict we will get bigger and bigger!